


Out to Sea

by everythingwasgay



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Rape Aftermath, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2016-01-22
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5784922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingwasgay/pseuds/everythingwasgay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started small, innocent. A hand on my shoulder. A hug. A father looking for the affection he could not find in his son. Because of me. A smile, a kind word, sleeping next to each other, sleeping under the same blanket, and then, not sleeping. He might’ve listened. I probably could have fought him, and won. Maybe. He should've known, he should've known. Did he know?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out to Sea

_ Everything I love is on the table. Everything I love is out to sea. I’m not alone. I’ll never be... _

**Don’t Swallow the Cap, The National**

 

I can still feel his hands on my wrists, my neck, in my hair, his breath on my cheek. 

You touch my waist, gently, with your fingertips. You lay behind me, close enough that I can feel the heat of your body against mine, but not exactly touching me. 

I did something I shouldn’t have today. I thought about Dajh. I shouldn’t have been thinking of anything at all, really. Everything else is so much more important. Our focus, Ragnarok, finally seeing you again. There shouldn’t be room in me for anything so trivial, so unnecessary. But there was, and I did it anyway. I thought of his fingers. They were so small, chunky. Baby fingers, with little slivers of fingernails. When he was turned into a L’cie, that’s what struck me the most. His fingers and his fingernails.

He’s just a baby. We ruined a baby’s life. I ruined a baby’s life. Or rather, I took his life away.  

So maybe I deserved it, after all. Or maybe, it was nothing. Maybe I’m overthinking it. Maybe I wanted it. Maybe he thought I wanted it. 

You wiggle closer, and I tense up, shoulders drawn up to my ears.

“Vanille.” 

I shut my eyes tight in the hopes that you’ll think I’m just having a nightmare. 

We were friends. We are friends. I haven’t known him long, but people who have been through what we have stick tightly. You and I, my dearest Fang, are an example of such. I didn’t tell him no. Was it guilt? Oh but this guilt is so much worse. I can’t tell you, I can’t take responsibility. But in another sense, I can’t  _ not _ take responsibility for it either. 

“Vanille, I can tell you’re awake.” 

Today, when we were reunited, my heart felt so full and light at the same time, like a balloon. I needed your hand, strong and warm and reassuring, in mine to keep me anchored to the Palamecia, literally and figuratively, as the wind threatened to take all of us out. But then you turned to him, and laid your other hand on his shoulder. 

“Thank you,” you said. Your eyes looked as if they were about to brim over with tears. “For keeping her safe.” 

And then I was hollow. You kept a hand on me the whole rest of the day, as if to keep me from flying away, from leaving your side again. As if to make sure you couldn’t lose me. There is no danger of any of that. I don’t know if there is anything left of me for you to lose, Fang. 

It started small, innocent. A hand on my shoulder. A hug. A father looking for the affection he could not find in his son. Because of me. A smile, a kind word, sleeping next to each other, sleeping under the same blanket, and then, not sleeping. 

A hand on my breast and I didn’t move it, but I could have. He might’ve listened. I probably could have fought him, and won. Maybe. 

And it kept happening, every night until Nautilus. I didn’t look at him. He kissed me, and my lips did not move, or part. I did not touch him. I laid still, and he said nothing. Not before, not during, not after. Once, the first time, I pushed slightly on his shoulders, and he began to cry, and I began to cry, but he did not stop what he was doing to me. He should have known, he should have known. Did he know? 

“Vanille.” And now there is an edge to your voice that scares me.

You have never hurt me, but there are others that have. Were. They are long dead. Men in the village who didn’t think anyone would care about what happened to a pretty young orphan. You killed them when you found out. I remember it vividly. You hunted them each down, one man a night for a week. As the week progressed and the remaining men caught on, they grew frantic, hiding in different villages, trekking to the middle of the wilderness to escape you. You tracked them as you would a beast, and you killed them as you would a beast. When you were done, however, you desecrated their bodies (something you would never have done to an animal) so that all would know their crimes and did not perform their final rites for them.

I do not want you to kill Sazh. I believe he is good. He has to be good. He’s my friend. 

But that edge to your voice. It’s too similar, too familiar, and I don’t like it. You rarely talk to me in such a manner. You are soft spoken and gentle with me, both verbally and physically. You cradle me like an infant, or an uncooked egg, fragile, with your words and your hands and your body. With others however, you are callous and mean and rough, and it frightens me sometimes, that you have that capacity. 

“I am awake,” I finally say. It is barely a whisper. I don’t want to wake the others. I don’t really want to talk at all. 

Your lips are at my ear. “I love you.” 

My throat closes. I can’t let you know I’m about to cry. You’ll ask why, and I won’t be able to tell you, but you’ll find out because you always find out. And then Sazh will die, Dajh won’t have a father, and  **that** will be my fault too. My fault, my-

“You don’t have to talk yet,” you say. “But I love you. And I have a feeling you need to talk, that there’s something wrong.”

Still, I say nothing. 

And then you’re silent for a while, a long time. Just when I think you must’ve fallen asleep, though, you say, “What can I do?”

You’ve never asked that before. I’m not sure how to react at first. I think about it. 

“I-” I stop myself, guilty and ashamed. 

“Anything,” you say, and I turn around to look at you for the first time. 

You have dark circles under your eyes. You have not been sleeping since we parted. Neither have I. Your hair is messy, tangled. I have the urge to comb through it with my fingers. I reach out, and brush my fingertips against your bangs. 

“Don’t ask why I’m crying,” I say, and the tears are already coming, and I choke on the last two words and bury my face in your chest. 

You don’t ask. I cry myself to sleep, wrapped in your arms, and I don’t feel nauseous or sick, and I don’t tense up. The first night I have really slept since we parted. And when I wake, you’re still asleep, my favorite languid smile across your face. I trace your lips with my thumb, and you automatically part them, even in your sleep. My chest aches, but not an empty ache. A full ache, a too much ache, a break open ache. 

I will tell you. But until then, I hope you won’t ask why I’m crying. 

**Author's Note:**

> I LOVE Sazh, and I don't want people to think I hate him or anything. For the record, I don't see this happening at all with Sazh's character. I wanted to write about feeling guilt for something that isn't your fault, and the guilt Vanille already felt about Dajh I feel tied into that. Anyways, this is definitely 100% not canon and I'm sorry.


End file.
